Tag: felting

The beach was amazing! We were right on Pacific Ocean in Ocean Park, WA and it was gorgeous. We met my dearest friend Nicole and her family. We stayed at their family beach house *right* on the beach, LUCKY! I mentioned in my last post that I had my knitting all packed up and of course I completely forgot to actually put it in the car, so packed or not, did me no good.

The craziest thing happened when I missed a turn about a 1/4 mile from the beach house and my husband noticed a little cafe that was in the same building as a yarn shop. What are the odds? We ended up enjoying some delicious breakfast at the cafe one of the mornings we were there and of course...yarn time!

The decor at the Full Circle Cafe was pretty adorable. There were felted fish hanging from the ceiling along with other pretty things - beach related - and seriously the food was incredible!

We enjoyed our breakfast and the kids and my husband headed back to the beach house while I did a little bit of yarn browsing/shopping. Of course I'd forgotten needles as well, so I had to indulge in a new pair (or two or three). Someone locally made these adorable needles with a pair of dice on the ends, so I had to snag those up and I was leaning toward a quick and easy project that I could complete in the sand on a blanket while my kids made castles and waded and my husband strummed his ukulele.

I ended up deciding on the Cascade cotton yarn so I could make little beach hats for the babes. It was a bit of a stretch for me purchasing something other than wool but it made more sense for the season to get cotton yarn. This yarn can stretch too, that little ball goes a long way and it is very user friendly. Oh, and I threw in a hank of Cascade wool too. That wool will knit something sweet and maybe I'll even felt it. I understand this Cascade yarn is wonderful yarn for felting.

In case you aren't aware of the temperature on the beach on the West coast, it's cold. We got so lucky and had beautiful weather everyday, but one, but it was still chilly. Windy and hat-worthy for sure. So I started on little Clara's hat. Oh my gosh I finally got to meet little Clara. She's a peach!

This was right outside of Tapestry Rose and I walked right along this beautiful coast from the yarn shop back to the beach house. Ahhhh! There is something very magical about the ocean.

And something even more magical about my new knitting supplies purchased right on the beach.

Look at those cute little dice needles and of course the variegated cotton wonders. I got myself another pair of circular needles and I was just crossing my fingers hoping I didn't have size 5 already.

Meet Gary - he and his wife Colleen own Tapestry Rose. I was happy to meet him and find yarn right on the beach. One of the more perfect vacations of my life. Best friends, really relaxing, and my kids love sand and sea!

Yay I'm moving along! It isn't a scarf! So this didn't actually take me very long to knit up. I think I did it over the course of a few evenings (a few movies) and finished up on a weekend. The finishing was the hardest for me as I haven't ever done anything major with decreases, etc. I didn't have a pattern when I started but then ended up finding a knitted cap pattern which was very helpful for the decreases at the end. This was for my sweet little August. I let him choose his wool himself and then I added one extra stripe. This is also the first time I've switched colors while knitting. I have run out of yarn mid-project and had to start a new skein but this time it was all intentional (as I hope you can tell). I found the pattern in a book that I checked out at the library (another great way to get free patterns).

I used Patons Classic Wool for this particular project. It is a yarn that needs to be hand washed but is great for felting. The main color used was Cognac Heather. It said to knit it up using size 7 needles but I used size 6 circular needles for this project. It was my first time using circular needles and I love them! I wish you could finish the entire hat without switching to double pointed needles but it was a good first time experience for me. I guess most of you reading this probably know that you just knit the entire hat to make it roll this way, so no purling required. I think I started with 76 cast ons. I should write it down because I forget so easily. Since it was a gift for my little boy (who isn't even 3) I figured that would be plenty, but if I had it to do all over again I would have done less. It is a bit big for him, I guess I could try lightly felting it to get it to shrink down...or just save it until he's a bit bigger. I just don't like that it doesn't cover his ears very well...it doesn't stay down over them. I'm actually making another hat right now but I'm using a ribbed stitch and it is going to be much better for ear coverage - that one is for Simon.

The upside to decreasing is I got to use my cute stitch markers from Skyline. I just knit two together before each of my stitch markers until I was done. It made a nice little star atop his cute little head.

One more photo of cute boots. He loves his new hat (almost as much as he loves to eat snow).